Rheinmetall beats General Dynamics to supply Bradley’s successor
Team Lynx, led by US-based Rheinmetall, has been awarded Phase 3 and Phase 4 contracts for its Optional Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) by the US Army.
Team Lynx and General Dynamics are the two remaining competitors in the potential five-phase $45 billion program to replace the four-decade-old Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. M2 Bradley is one of the backbones of the US armored forces.
Original competitors included BAE Systems, Oshkosh Defense and Point Blank Enterprises.
Stages 3, 4, 5
Phase 3 will see the two companies supply detailed designs for the platform, now renamed the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle.
In the fourth phase, seven to 11 prototypes of the XM30 vehicle will be built for evaluation.
The total cost of the contract exceeds 700 million dollars.
The Army expects to reduce the selection of a supplier for initial low-rate production in the final phase in late 2027, with mass production and troop deployment expected to begin in 2029. At that point, the contract will be its complete implementation.
New generation infantry fighting vehicle
Team Lynx's candidate vehicle is based on the design of Rheinmetall's Lynx KF41, with a crew of two soldiers and a third virtual crew member powered by artificial intelligence, Raytheon Technologies said in 2021.
“We will design a vehicle where the AI will detect, identify and track a target, but leave the engagement decision up to the soldier,” said Pat McCormack, capabilities analyst at Raytheon.
Team Lynx includes American Rheinmetall, Textron Systems, Raytheon Technologies, L3Harris Technologies, Allison Transmission and Anduril Industries.
General Dynamics offered the Griffin III technology demonstrator based on the Ajax scout vehicle chassis.
Curiously, Rheinmetal, precisely with the Kf41, had recently lost the tender for the supply of armored personnel carriers in Australia against the Korean K2 .
Characteristics
The Team Lynx vehicle will feature a modular design and open architecture for mission-specific configurations. This will make it possible to adapt the vehicle to various functions, such as, for example, also being a platform for anti-aircraft launchers, a recovery or transport vehicle
It will be armed with a 50mm cannon and house a variety of drones.
It is also expected to feature guided missiles, high-performance thermal sights, and accommodate nine soldiers.
The team aims to provide “a combat vehicle with superior protection, unsurpassed firepower and unbeatable mobility,” according to the American Rheinmetall. “Operating with other units or independently, the vehicle can sense, move and strike in a connected, fast-changing, complex and lethal operating environment unlike any infantry fighting vehicle before.”
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The Rheinmetall article beats General Dynamics for the supply of the Bradley's successor comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/rheinmetall-batte-general-dynamics-per-la-fornitura-del-successore-del-bradley/ on Wed, 09 Aug 2023 05:30:28 +0000.